All Forum Posts by: Bruce P.

Hi,

I have a friend pretty new to real estate, but he recently bought a 4 bed 2 bath single family home with a 2 car garage (for like 2 sedans).  The catch is that to fit both cars, he'll have to clear out extra shelves and a workbench.  Personally, I think it's handy to have a workbench and some extra shelves. But as I think about it, for a family of 3 or 4 wanting to rent a house, do you think they'd probably want space to park 2 cars?  Just trying to get some ideas from an investment point of view (rather than as someone living in the house as a primary residence), since different families may have different preferences.

Interesting read, thanks!

@Parris Edwards, I'm still working on my first unless you're talking to the other poster....

Thank you @Davido Davido, they will have a separate water meter for the ADU. The issue is that since the "garden wall" surrounds the ADU but is also technically part of the house's backyard, how do you decide whom to charge for the water or if you try and apportion the charges, how do you decide how much of the "garden wall" water to charge the ADU for? The ADU resident could make the claim the "garden wall" is really not part of their unit it seems like.

Hi,

So my friend is building a ~600 sq foot ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) in their backyard to be rented out as a "private residence" (think of it like a 1 bedroom studio/apartment with its own living space/bedroom/bathroom. It will be fenced off to shield prying eyes from the house and have its own gated entrance on the side of the house.

The whole house lot is surrounded by a 2 foot high (approx 4 foot wide) brick walled "garden" where shrubs and trees currently grow. There's a sprinkler system throughout the garden.

One possible headache is the fact that the homeowner (my friend is the owner but there will be other renters in the 4 bedroom house) may end up subsidizing the cost of watering the garden trees/shrubs by virtue of the fact the brick walled garden surrounds the entire backyard.

Other than leaving everything as is and just explaining to potential renters that the people in the home end up footing the water bill for the shrubs / trees, is there a low-cost design and easy to rehab design tweak that could be made to the garden wall to alleviate this concern? Or is my friend overthinking it? Since the sprinkler system runs throughout the soil in the garden wall and the soil is also basically a moderately inclined "hill", it might not be too easy to demolish the part of the wall that surrounds the ADU and fence it off, but my friend is fairly new to the rehab process.

Here is a link to a diagram that explains it visually: ADU diagram (for some reason picture attachment isn't working)

Thank you @David Gonzalez, that's helpful

Thank you @David Gonzalez, apparently the test results said everything was fine.

thank you for your reply @Clint Shelley - I actually don't know if it includes permit pulls. I assume it would include some small materials such as screws, etc., but I clearly should ask.  I'm pretty new to this - what would permits need to be pulled for? It's a pretty small job I think.

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/09/23/construction-workers-in-california-among-highest-paid-in-the-nation/ - Apparently, "California landed 10th on the list of the 10 Highest Wage States, with average hourly earnings of $21.26." 

thanks @Kevyn Miyata, I only the total square footage of the house (1961 sq ft), so thanks for providing a breakdown without the existing measurements.

Hi, 

So my friend recently bought a single family 4 bed/2 bath house in the Simi Valley/Thousand Oaks/Moorpark/Newbury Park/Westlake Village area. They wanted to do some light renovating to make it ready to rent to prospective roommates.

The major work (i.e., the major driver of the cost) is removing carpeting and using vinyl / laminate flooring, painting/patching walls throughout the house, and plastering the popcorn ceiling(s).

They received 3 contractor estimates, one for $17.1K, the other for $18.1K, and the other for $35K.

Obviously $35K sounds a bit high when compared to the others. As it's their first project, my friend wanted to know:

1) Should they try and negotiate down the estimates or leave it as is?

2) Do these estimates sound reasonable?

I think it's mostly labor costs, as my friend will be buying the materials when possible to avoid hidden fees.

Thank you @Jonathan Pelanne